


Echoes

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Canon-equivalent levels of torture, Death of Shara Bey, M/M, Non-sexualised, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 13:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6471409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben and Poe's lives have been wound together for so long that when they unravel, everything does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



Ben is nervous. It is his first day at school, his first _real_ day at school, and he doesn’t really know anyone. Mom’s been moving about a lot, or so it feels to him. Lots of long trips and nice new places to explore, but it can get a bit lonely when you gotta do that with your Da or your Unca all the time. He loves Da and Unca Chewie, he does, but he watches other kids holding hands when they play and he wishes he could do the same. 

Mom got him a new bag for his things. It’s got a picture of a cool animated character on that Ben loves, and his fingers slide over the screen-printing. He has gym kit ready to put in his locker, and a snack for the breaktime. The meals are all organised, so he doesn’t have lunch, and he has a little, personal holopad for his work. The little car pulls to a halt, and his mother kisses his forehead, and tells him it will be good, and it’s okay to be scared. Ben holds the bag tighter and nods.

***

Ben says hello to everyone, bright eyes wide and hopeful. He swaps names with people, and they talk a bit about themselves, but he doesn’t want to talk about his Mom and his Da, so he tries to not. There is a nice Bothan and there is a nice Human, and Ben thinks maybe he could be friends with them, if they would let him talk to them as much as they talk to one another. 

The lesson goes fine, and then it’s breaktime. He takes his bag outside and puts it on the bench and he opens it up and pulls out his juicebox. 

Over in one corner, to the left, he can hear sniggering. It is not the nice laughing noises, it is the mean ones. Ben doesn’t like mean laughs. He turns around to see one little boy making a weird gesture with his hands making fake, big ears. The other one laughs and honks the first’s nose, except he doesn’t make contact, he squeezes the air in front of him. Ben frowns, and they see him watching and they laugh harder.

He doesn’t fully understand, but he turns back to his bag and he chews on the straw, his drink mostly gone. A shadow falls over the picture of his favourite character and he tilts his head up. There is a taller boy - probably a couple of years older - smiling down at him. He has kind eyes, eyes that remind him maybe a bit of his Da, and he has messy hair, and his mouth is so wide he looks like he could eat up a whole spaceship.

“Ignore them,” says the boy, with a voice that is gentle. “Ma says you should feel sorry for people who gotta try make others feel bad. Says they must be sad inside, if they wanna make other people sad, too.”  


“Thanks,” Ben says, and his finger presses into the chewed, blue end of the straw. He prangs it up and down, letting it make noises and sputter the tiny droplets of juice out.   


“Poe,” says the older boy. “Can I sit with you?”  


“Sure,” Ben says, and pulls his bag onto his knee. “Ben.”  


“You like that show, too?” Poe’s eyes flicker from the bag to his face.  


“Y-yeah, a bit.” It was his favourite show.   


“Me too! I love it. It’s nice to meet you, Ben.”  


Ben feels a bit better, then, though he’s not sure why an older boy wants to be his friend. Maybe he took pity on him, but Ben doesn’t really know for sure. All he knows is Poe talks about things he loves, and he makes Ben talk about things _he_ loves, and he doesn’t feel so weird having his obsessions any more.

***

Ben has never been to a funeral before. He knows about death as a concept, because the tales that get told about the dinner table sometimes solemnly mention people who are _gone_ , but it’s one thing to know people existed who you will never meet (your grandfathers, your grandmothers, Biggs, Obi-Wan: all just names) and another thing to know that someone you remember is gone.

Poe’s Ma had been really nice. Ben had liked her. He had met her only a few times, and she had smelled of fresh flowers and engine oil. Even when she hadn’t been flying, she had that scent of the skies to her which he knew from his Da. Mrs Bey-Dameron had let him go over for dinner and to play and she had let him sleep over a few times and always asked him how he was and told him about her ship which Ben liked. He liked - 

He -

But Poe’s Ma was _gone_ , now. And it wasn’t even like it was something like being sick. It was one of those **here then gone** things that heroes seemed to have, and he’d tried to tell Poe that, but Poe hadn’t wanted to know. Poe’s eyes didn’t have the happy in them, and he had been so quiet at school and the dumb kid Blyth had said something mean and Ben had kicked him in the shin and Ben had been yelled at and made to stand facing the wall. 

Ben had stood, facing the wall. He had never been told off before, and his big ears had burned red, and he’d scuffed his shoes into the masonry.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Poe had said, standing to the side of him.  


It was probably not allowed to talk to one another when being punished, so Ben had looked horrified. Poe was going to get him in more trouble, and then himself, too!

“I did. He was mean to you.”  


“You didn’t have to kick him.”  


“He made me angry.”  


“I know.” Poe looked both happy and sad, then. Like he was happy Ben cared, but sad he got angry.  


Ben didn’t know how he felt about that. He just wanted the sad to go away, and he didn’t know how. He turned his face back to the stone and glowered holes into it. 

“Ma wouldn’t want you to get into trouble,” Poe had whispered.   


“I miss her, and she’s not even my Mom,” Ben had said, back,   


Poe had held his hand, then, and they stood at the wall together.

Now Poe is standing with his Da, and they are holding hands. Ben’s mom offers hers, but he doesn’t want it. He can feel the sadness in his friend, and Ben is angry again. He is angry because Poe is upset, and he can’t just smile at him and make it go away. You can’t bring back people who are gone, and you can’t just make people **happy**. And Ben is not as good at cheering people up as Poe is, and he knows that _Poe needs Poe_. Poe needs someone good at making others smile, and that is not Ben.

The ceremony is weird, formal, and over soon.

Poe is pulled away from the service, but their eyes meet. Ben struggles really hard to think into his head: _I’m sorry. I’m sorry._

He thinks he hears a _thank you_ and then Poe is gone.

***

Poe is not old enough to have his full pilot’s licence, won’t be for a few years. He’s still flying, though. Ben envies the easy way he takes to it, and watches the glee on his face whenever he comes from another lesson. 

Ben wonders if he enjoys it so much because his Ma did, and because he thinks he has to be like his Ma. Ben can’t really judge: his Da, and his Unca Luke are both great at flying, and his Mom and Unca Luke are Force users, and he’s probably supposed to grow up to be like them. Ben pushes the soles of his shoes together and he listens to Poe talk about the skip in his stomach, and how responsive the craft was, and how beautiful space looks when you’re up there.

Both of them have spent as much time off-planet as on, and Ben’s sort of taken it for granted. Once you’ve spent most of your life with the hum of a hyperdrive lulling you to sleep, or the light-swirls of stars streaking around your head as you eat your cereal on your Da’s knee, well. It becomes the same as anything else.

But when he listens to Poe talk about it, it somehow feels magical again. The forces of gravity around a planet, the spin of it, the winds of the atmosphere... puncturing them is a matter of moments, and unconscious action to his piloting relatives. But that single point of failure, that puncturing out from the hold of a planet and into the gripless vacuum, the vast distances between stars that are too big to really understand... it becomes something real again.

Ben loves to listen to Poe talk about it. Poe knows with every fibre of his being who and what he’s going to be. It’s... nice. But it’s also terrifying. There’s only a few years between them, and Ben can’t see how he’d feel the same at Poe’s age. He has no idea who he wants to be. Everything seems to be complicated, confusing, conflicting.

~~And the voice likes it that way.~~

They couldn’t _be_ more different. Poe is friends with everyone, on some level. He’s even nice to the less-nice people at school. He smiles almost all the time, and if he isn’t smiling and is thinking, but then he catches you looking? He smiles. Like. Just like that. And it never looks forced, or strained, or artificial.

Ben, on the other hand, smiles less and less. The jokes his father makes about him being a moody teen early are losing whatever amusement level they never really had. Things worry him. The galaxy worries him. _He_ worries him. And he only finds his mouth automatically changing shape when Poe looks back at him. 

It’s weird, like his body wants to mirror his expression, without any conscious thought. Like it wants to be happy, although he’s forgetting how it feels. He listens to Poe’s enthusiastic zooming noises, fake battles re-enacted in front of him and he just - he -

“Ben?”  


An arm around him, and he jumps. He never jumps when Poe touches him. Other people, yes, but not Poe. 

“Ben... what’s wrong?”  


He’s on the verge of tears, and he doesn’t know how to explain himself. Doesn’t know _how_ you tell your best friend that - that - you’re just not like him. You aren’t bright and alive and caring and loving and driven. How do you tell them that you’re kriffing terrified? That you’re having those nightmares more and more, that sometimes they slip into your daydreams? That not even the hot light of Yavin sol is enough to burn through the darkness?

How do you tell him, and not have him run away in horror? Because he should. He should run, because Ben is _bad_. Ben isn’t like his parents, or his uncle. He isn’t a hero. He’s - he’s all bent out of shape inside. He’s a faulty replica, not an improvement upon a mould. His teeth cut into his lip, and he tosses his head.

“Nothing. Just a headache,” he lies, or half-truths, and shoves his face into the crook of his arm. Curls up, and closes his eyes. It means the _nightmare voice_ is more likely to talk, but he can’t - **will not** \- see the worry in Poe’s face. “I should go home.”  


“Ben... can I help? I... want to help.”  


No one can help Ben, that is the point. He is beyond saving. He was never salvageable to begin with.

***

It is the day before his uncle will come to collect him. Tomorrow, Luke Skywalker will arrive. Ben will carry his bag of possessions and walk out of everyone’s lives. He will leave them all, and... and...

“What colour do you think your lightsaber will be?” Poe asks him.  


“Oh... uh. I don’t know.”  


“They used to have different colours depending on your specialisation. I read that.”  


Poe did, of course. He’d probably researched the Jedi until the ends of the ‘net in order to find things to tell Ben, to cheer him up.

“I guess whatever colour crystal I get.”  


Ben doesn’t want a damn lightsaber. Not any more. Being a Jedi is going to be awful. ~~The voice has told him that.~~ He doesn’t want to give up on his studies. Sure, some of it is hard, but he _likes_ the mechanical elements, and he likes the stupid art, and he likes the politics and the literature and he likes _being around people_. People like Poe. Okay, so the rest of them think he’s the freak he is, but... but when he’s with Poe, sometimes he forgets. He forgets, and he thinks he’s just a person, not the thing everyone else sees.

But no. He has to go and train with his Uncle. His mother can’t handle him, his father thinks he’s broken, and he’s right. Ben is broken. And now the very few things he has left are being taken from him.

“We can still talk, you know. Holo-calls. And when there’s vacations...?”  


“Yeah.” No. Ben would almost rather he was already gone. The waiting is the worst part. He’s acting like a huge baby, emotional over stupid things, unable to handle change or separation. Baby. That’s him. Stupid. Foolish. Pathetic. Weak.   


“And I bet Dad will let me come visit.”  


What’s the point, Ben thinks. Poe will get bored of waiting, make new friends. Friends who don’t have to live by stupid fucking rules. Poe will have his own life and Ben will be this statue-thing. A monk. If he even makes it, which he isn’t so sure he will.

“Yeah.”  


Poe hugs him. It doesn’t help.

***

They missed two holo-dates out of the last five; Ben remembers. One had been his own fault (Sorry, Poe, I’ve got to master this technique) and one had been Poe’s (Ben, I’m sorry, buddy, but something’s come up). Something. Ben had worried over the word for a week. Something.

Poe hadn’t even bothered to give him the real reason, the real excuse. 

He didn’t even merit the reality of the situation, and to Ben’s broken heart that meant _I don’t want to talk to you, and I can’t be bothered to come up with an excuse, or literally anything else is more important, I have fifty new friends because I am awesome and I finally realised how lame you are and really I only liked you because I hero-worshipped your mother and I wanted to meet her and I was morbidly curious about the Force thing but in reality it’s kind of creepy and weird so you go off be a Jedi and I will go and be a cool, normal person_.

Which means this holo-date is awkward. The little, flickering blue figure leans in, smiles so radiantly that projected lines could never do it justice, and waves.

“Buddy!”  


In his head, it sounds like: _Weirdo!_

“Hey.”  


“How you been? You get that thing working?”  


“Thing?”  


“That you were learning?”  


Oh. That. “Yeah.” Sort of. 

“You gonna show me?”  


“It’s not really... it wouldn’t work well, over holo.”  


“Aww. Okay. Rain check?”  


Poe is sixteen, now, and does he ever look it. He shot up all of a sudden, filling out with the perfect amount of toned muscle. He looks like an adult, or close to one. Maybe just a little teen left, even though he’s still got four more years at this. Ben realises with an ugly feeling that Poe will be breaking hearts all over the place. He’s gotten through the gawky phase of puberty in next to no time. Even seeing him brokenly like he does, and the differences being more pronounced, it’s like Poe has sauntered from boy-to-teen-to-young-man without ever having squeaky throat sounds, terrible skin, more than a slight frown for a mood swing or anything else. 

And if he sometimes thinks Poe looks sad, it’s just the holo. It’s that, nothing more. That, or wishful thinking. Ben almost wants to make his life even **more** miserable, just so that Poe will hurt more. It’s dumb, but he can’t help the tragic stories he casts himself in. 

Ben hates him. He hates him so hard. Poe is just too good, and he’s everything Ben can never, ever be. 

He goes through the holo-date feeling numb. In a way, he kind of wishes they’d stop them entirely. It’s just too painful to talk to him, and know he’s having adventures and fun and love. Ben was supposed to have adventures and fun and love. Instead he gets _inner peace_ and **self-control** and a bunch of things he just can’t feel inside. He isn’t calm, he isn’t focussed, he isn’t controlled. He’s the furthest thing you could be from a Jedi. He’s like his Dad, except with the Force.

It sucks.

***

Ben calls Poe. It’s not their normal time, it’s in the middle of the night on the planet his seventeen year old friend is training on. He never calls when they haven’t arranged it, wanting to make sure Poe is able to be there for the call. But this - this is an emergency. This is - this - is an exception, proving the rule.

He’s as far from his Uncle’s Academy as he can be. Huddled in the woods, knees pulled up to his chin. His fingers stroke the edge of the holo-emitter, and he licks his lips compulsively.

Poe comes into view, sideways, his hair a perfect mess. He was asleep. Probably still in bed.

“Ben? S’up?”  


“I-- I need to talk to you. Are... are you alone?”  


“Yeah. Just... okay. Gimme a sec.” The image goes, then there’s rustling, and Poe is upright. Still sleep-tousled, still dreamy-eyed. “Okay. Shoot.”  


“I can’t do it any more.”  


“Ben... what? What’s happened?”  


“I can’t live this lie, Poe. I-- I can’t. Do it. Any more.”  


“What happened? Ben, please, you’re not making any sense.”  


“I can’t... I’m... I’m not a Jedi, Poe. I can’t do it. I’m... I’m... different.” Ben pushes the heels of his hands into his closed eyes until he sees stars. “I can’t keep pretending this is going to work. I - I need... I need... to... I need to be who I am.”  


“Okay. Okay. What do you mean? You want to give up the Jedi training? You wanna come home and do something else, instead? You don’t have to be a Jedi.”  


Ben laughs. “They think I do. _They_ think I’m wrong. Broken. _They_ think that they can control me by breaking my heart and soul in two. But I won’t let them! I won’t!”

“They? Who is this ‘they’, Ben?”  


“ _My lying excuse for a family_.” The words come out darker than he originally meant, but it’s still true. “They don’t want me to see what I’m really capable of.”  


“...which is?”  


“ **Power** ,” Ben says, though the word is distasteful to his tongue, and if he’s honest, it isn’t the real reason.   


“...I don’t understand.”  


“I’m leaving. I’m leaving, Poe. I can learn so much more than they’ll teach me. I can _be_ so much more. I’m tired of being a heartless tool in their arsenal.” He leans closer, his lips framing the thing, but unable to - unable... he has to. He has to. “Come with me?”  


“Ben, where to? I don’t know where you’re going. I just woke up, but I think you need to walk this off? Talk to your uncle in the morning, wait for me to--”  


“MY UNCLE CAN’T HELP ME!” Ben yells.   


“Well, can I? C’mon, Ben. You... you had a rough day, or--”  


“Don’t you see? They cut me off from everyone! They sent me to this place - away from everything I cared about! They took Mom, and they took you.”  


“I’m right here, buddy.”  


“Yep. Right there. Where I’m not.”  


“I can get there. I can-- give me an hour. Okay? Don’t do anything. Give me an hour.”  


Ben thinks about it, and then he nods. “Okay.”

“Don’t do _anything_ until I get there.”  


“Okay.”  


“Promise?”  


“I promise.”  


***

Poe is coming. Poe is coming, and he is going to save Ben. He is going to save him. He is going to make all of this make sense. He’s going to - 

What? Exactly? Fight off the Dark Side voice that haunts him? That taunts him? Provokes, pushes, pressures? Poe’s just a _pilot_ , just a **human** , so the voice tells him. He can’t do anything to save Ben. 

But maybe he can. Maybe. Or he can... they can do it together. The voice will let him, right? The voice tells him that loving people isn’t wrong, and his hungry craving for affection is normal. Normal, and fine. So it will be okay if he leaves the Jedi with Poe in tow. It will.

The little shuttle lands a ways away, but Ben knows Poe will find him. He waits for him to come close before he rises, awkwardly. His limbs are stiff from sitting in place, and his back hurts and wants to stretch out. 

“Ben...”  


“He says he will show me the ways of the Force,” Ben blurts out, going for broke. “He says I can - I can still **feel**. He says I can be who I am supposed to be, and I don’t have to change. You... you... don’t want me to change, do you?”  


Poe’s hand rubs the back of his head, a flicker of doubt. Ben sees it. “Who is this person who is offering to help? It isn’t your uncle?”

“He’s old. He was here before my grandfather.”  


“Your grandfather... Anakin?”  


“Darth Vader.”  


“Ben... how do you know this person is telling you the truth?”  


“I’ve seen visions. And... Poe. If I stay here, I will _die_. My heart will die. I can’t - I don’t want... I don’t want to end up like my Uncle. Poe... come with me?”  


“Where?”  


“He wants to train me. You could come with me. We could be together.”  


“I’m... what does this person even _want_ from you? And how can you be convinced they’re going to help?”  


Ben lets air rush in, and then push out. “He wants me to be his new Apprentice. He wants me to be the start of a new order. One where... where the Force is used to full potential. And... he will let me keep you, with me. He will, I’m sure. I’ll make sure he lets me.”

“Uh, ‘keep me’? Ben, what do you even _mean_ by that?”  


Poe’s hurt, and Ben doesn’t know why. “He won’t want to train you. You don’t have the Force, so you won’t be useful to him, but I want you with me.”

“Right. What for? Someone to hold your cloak when you get in a fight?”  


“What? Poe, no, I--” Why can’t he get this across right? Why doesn’t Poe see that him asking for his friend to come with would be an honour? That it would be a nice thing for them both, and that he thinks Poe is important enough to make him a condition of his trespass?   


“Sounds to me like some cultist asshole,” Poe blurts out. “And I want no part of it. You have to talk to your Uncle. This sounds like Sith work to me.”  


“Poe! But... but I need you!”  


“You don’t. And even if you do, I’m not coming with you.”  


“But... I can’t _be_ with you, if I stay. This is our only chance. This is the only way I get to keep you.” Ben’s pleading openly, now, horrified that Poe might still reject him.   


“Keep me? I don’t want to be _kept_. Ben, whoever this person is, they’re trying to hurt you, to use you. This... this isn’t the Ben I remember. This isn’t my friend. You’re hurt, and--” Poe reaches out to touch his arm, and Ben flinches away.

He doesn’t know how to make this work. He doesn’t know how to keep him, how to... he just needs him to come, too. In desperation, he pushes against his mind. He wants to keep Poe with him, and--

Poe’s eyes glaze, and he shakes his head, and Ben watches with disgust at himself. He’s. He just. He tried to-- to control him. To force him, like he’s felt forced. He’s no better than any of them.

The leash broken, Poe looks sick to his stomach. “Did you just try to make me do what you wanted?”

Ben did. He did. 

“I’m leaving,” Poe says, and Ben’s heart shatters into fifteen thousand pieces. “I’m leaving, and then I’m going to call your Mom, and tell her you need some help. Because I can’t do it, I’m sorry. I can’t do it, when I don’t know if you’re just gonna wipe my mind when you disagree with me. I - I’m sorry, Ben. You need someone to help who _can_ help, and I can’t.”  


“Poe... please don’t go.” He doesn’t care how pathetic he sounds. He doesn’t. 

“I’m... I’m sorry. I am.” Poe’s eyes are streaming. “I hope your family can help you. I’m sorry I’m not strong enough.”  


Poe leaves, and Ben knows he’s done it, now. He’s done the last thing. There’s no going back from this, and no one will ever trust him again. His family will lock him away like some dangerous animal, and... he’ll deserve it. 

***

The village is thrumming with lights, and lives, and voices. So many he recognises. Kylo Ren - no, _Ben Organa-Solo_ \- knew so many of them before. They knew a boy, and he is now a man. He is now a man, complete in himself, committed to the Dark Side. He is strong, and he is going to get this map.

The blaster-bolt pulls his attention sideways, and he lifts a hand to stop it, though as he glances down the blazing, stationary lick of fire, he sees a face he hadn’t expected. Quite how his presence merged with all the others... has it been that long? Has Poe Dameron’s fire waned? Or was it never as bright as it is in his memories of him?

They bring him before him, and he’s pushed down. He saw the look at the bolt, the show of power. Ben would never have managed that, but Kylo Ren can do it, and much more. 

He has aged. The jawline is now perfectly square, there’s the faintest dusting of grey barely there on his temples, his eyes are creased and the weird smile on his face looks _tired_ , now. Looks fake, in the way his smiles never used to.

The bright, perfect boy is gone. This one - this man - has the patina over something darker, something splintered and sharp inside. His lip quirks as he quips, and his hands move, as Kylo Ren bends to watch him from closer. He has to see for himself what has become to the boy he once knew.

If only he’d come with him. 

Things would be so different, now, if he had. 

Poe’s mind gives easier under his touch, this time. He remembers the horror he’d felt at doing it, that first time. It’s become easier, over the years. Even doing it to Poe is like breathing, and that... feels... weird. He licks his lips in an echo, hidden, and tells them to put him aboard the ship. He’s not going to finish the interrogation here. He’s going to do it in private. If nothing else, he... owes him that much? 

He feels Poe’s flare of horror when the command to raze the village comes down. Feels it, and it was partially the point. They’re dangerous radicals, but also he needs to make an impression. He needs Poe to understand that he is Kylo Ren, now. Not the gawky, awkward boy he - or Tekka - remembered. 

They fly back to the _Finalizer_.

***

Interrogating Poe turns out to be a little harder than he imagined. Of course, being around his m-- around the _General_ \- he’s likely been taught more than a few Force-resisting tricks. That, or he’s smart enough to throw up mental interference. And he does, oh he does. 

Flood after flood of meaningless memories, snatches of cockpits and cantinas and missions and landings and smoke and adrenaline... Kylo pushes deeper. Poe thinks of songs, and they reverberate around both their heads, but it won’t last. Deeper still, and he’s assaulted with a slew of memories he knows intimately well, though from another camera angle. He grits his teeth and breathes through his nose as he tries to find--

“ _It was my fault_ ,” Poe said, to his mother. Young. He’s so young. He’s - he’s... seventeen? His mother looks young, too. Like she did before he--  


“ _His actions are not your fault, Poe,”_ his mother corrected his friend. “ _We should all have seen it coming_.”  


“ _Can’t - can’t we get him back?”_  


_“Yes, but I don’t know how.”  
_

_“I’ll - I’ll do it. I’ll--”_ And the crushing sense of guilt, of inadequacy, when Poe realised he had no abilities, no talents, no way of saving his best friend. None  


“ _If anyone can help him...”_  


_“Tell me how?”  
_

The memory fades, and Kylo shoves harder, finding threads of pain and edging them up and up and up. “The map,” he growls.

He does not want to know what plans they concocted over the years to steal him back. He does not. He does not even want to think about the possibility, or the fact that his friend has missed him, all these years. Does not. Does **not**. Does **NOT.**

_Orange. Orange. White. Round. Small._

The thoughts are disjointed, but giving under his pressure. 

_Home. Come home. Droid. Come home. Ben. BB-8._

Kylo storms out of the room, leaving Poe panting and sore. Hux is waiting, and he tells him what’s necessary. He has to get away from here, away... away from...

“ _I’ll join you_ ,” Poe had told his mother, older, worn, sad. “ _Maybe I can’t save Ben any more, but I can still do something worthwhile_.”  


“ _Bring my brother home, Poe. Maybe Luke can help us.”_  


_“Anything, General.”_   


_“We’ll get him back. I know we will.”  
_


End file.
